Immediately after the British had voted for Brexit in the June 2016 referendum, my knee-jerk reaction was to plan an article. Even many of those who’d voted Leave had expected the vote to go the other way. Whichever way you look at it, many of our assumptions of the last 40+ years are now out of date. We live in a world of uncertainty. Surely this would effect our retirement planning, I thought.<\/p>\n
Actually I ended up taking around eight months to write this. I’ve read with interest what others have been writing. Of course many and varied opinions have been offered.<\/p>\n
As I write, Brexit still hasn’t formally started. This will require Article 50 of the Lisbon Treaty to be triggered. The government originally believed that it could trigger Article 50 without the consent of Parliament. However the courts ruled that Parliament must first give its consent. The process for this is underway, and most people assume that Parliament will grant its consent.<\/p>\n
Interestingly, during the referendum campaign, David Cameron stated that in the event of a Leave vote, he would immediately trigger Article 50. He didn’t though, but had he done so, we might now be in a legal mess! But as things now stand, the process of Brexit looks set to commence in earnest very soon. One\u00a0thing that we don’t yet have a clear view of is the outcome, of course.<\/p>\n
Apart from an initial dip right after the vote, markets have proven to be highly resilient to the shock and uncertainty of Brexit. Most pundits predicted market turmoil, but this proved too pessimistic.<\/p>\n
Most experts also predicted that the economy would take a sharp downturn. That too failed to happen. Opinion still remains divided as to whether Brexit will be to the long-term benefit to the UK economy or to its detriment. I’m not going to offer my own opinion on this. This is partly because I don’t feel qualified enough to do so. But mainly it’s because I really have no idea! Obviously I hope that Brexit will prove to be a bonanza for the UK economy, but hope is not the same as prediction.<\/p>\n